MONTREAL - There’s a sticky little issue that is hardly ever mentioned when it comes to food criticism: personal taste. A good critic tries to keep it at bay, and a lesser critic makes it an issue. I mean, should a critic pan a restaurant for serving too much meat, too large portions, or too many desserts made with basil? If a restaurant chooses to play it that way, is it fair to knock it?

One might even argue, that it is not up to the critic to chastise a restaurant for serving unsustainable seafood. That issue seems especially relevant since, in a recent New York Times article, uber chef Thomas Keller said that his priority has to be taste, above all other considerations like sustainability, seasonality and food miles. “Is global food policy truly our responsibility, or in our control?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”A chef’s main goal, he claimed, should only be to provide dinners with “a seamless fusion of pleasure and art.” According to Keller, his responsibility is, “primarily to create breathtakingly delicious and beautiful food – not, as some of their colleagues think, to provide a livelihood for farmers near their restaurants, to preserve traditional culinary arts or to stop the spread of global warming.”

Heady stuff!

So if the chef’s ultimate goal is simply to create delicious and beautiful food, the critic’s real role is to tell you whether he or she succeeded. Yet aha! That issue of personal taste raises its head once again, for what constitutes delicious for me, might not be what constitutes delicious for you. And thus the dilemma. How to judge?

The evaluation of professionalism might be the answer, a sort of checklist of everything from whether the wine was properly served to whether the vinaigrette was properly balanced. I guess we can go out on a limb and determine whether that seamless fusion of pleasure and art was successful, yet let’s face facts: not all restaurants are in that “art” league. In the long run, really, I guess the critic is there to determine what the majority of diners would find pleasing. Or, as importantly, unpleasing.

Such deep thoughts prevailed throughout a recent dinner at a new restaurant called Communion. A restaurant that I entered smiling, and exited scratching my head.

Located in the Old Port, Communion makes excellent use of the deep sidewalks that face the waterfront-that-wasn’t. De la Commune has so much potential to be so much more than the grand, though sleepy street it has become. All the action is on the south side of the avenue, yet on the north side, the only serious restaurant is the nec-plus-ultra-though-sadly-private club Le 357C on the west. On my long walk up to Communion (warning: parking in the neighbourhood is trying), I could see their comely outdoor terrasse, which makes up the majority of the seating as the inside of the restaurant is quite small. Though the terrasse is heated, I preferred eating inside this chic space, with its copper-topped baby blue bar, stone walls, slate floors, and beamed ceilings.

Our handsome waiter immediately appeared with menus and an original wine list that features private import bottles from different wine agencies every month. May’s included the wines of one of my favourite sommeliers/wine agents, Alain Bélanger, and June’s care lists the wine of Trialto, an agency located in offices a floor above the restaurant. Prices are fair and there’s a good number of wines available by the glass. And as there’s a sommelier on site, it’s worth asking if he has any bottles not listed, as was the case with our divine Stéphane Tissot Arbois Traminer white.

The concept at Communion is sharing, a style I fully endorse as it’s a great way to enjoy any meal. Platters are sold for two or more, though there are a few options for those who prefer a solo plate. The first section of the menu lists a few nibblies like oysters, a tartare and octopus brochettes. The one we chose was a steak tartare that arrived in quenelle form atop croutons. With a slight hit of onion and spice, and a good-sized cut of meat, this tartare scored, even with our white wine.

The next course, appetizers, includes soups, salads and breads like focaccia, a foie gras dish and two platters, one with charcuterie, one with vegetables. I selected that vegetable platter and a salad made up of wild “saveurs sauvage” greens.

Now what I said atop about personal taste plays a role in my impression of these dishes, none of which – alas – I found to MY taste. Though I love vegetables wholeheartedly, these fell flat, chief among them the beet salad and white asparagus on the vegetable platter. I always fear the worst when served coloured beets, and the ones here were pink and yellow, which had a muddy flavour common to those varieties. And as much as I liked the look of the white asparagus, these stalks were served raw with a too-thick, mayonnaise-like sauce. Cooked white asparagus tastes lovely. Raw white asparagus tastes like celery. Not good.

The salad wasn’t much better. Made of wild greens including several tubular pieces of wild leek, the salad was crisp and vibrant tasting, but the dressing used to enhance it was made with labneh (yogurt cheese), which tasted of nothing and weighed the whole mix down. As much as I think a vegetarian might enjoy this dish, I found it bland, as in something you’d eat in a spa...in Siberia.

Happily the main courses were less Spartan. Served for two, the Arctic char was a magnificent filet of this aristocratic fish served atop a bed of vegetables including fiddleheads and king eryngii mushrooms. The fish was perfect: fresh and moist from end to end, breaking into glistening chunks instead of flakes. Lovely.

Our other dish was a rib steak. Starring a sliced steak sourced from Mont-Laurier, the dish also counted roasted fingerling potatoes, boar bacon bits, and more king eryngii mushrooms, as well as a sauce made with deer stock and garlic confit. As delicious as that all sounds, results fell short of expectations. The meat wasn’t all that flavourful and tasted mostly of ground pepper. The potatoes were bland and the sauce did little to lift the muted flavours. As good as this dish looked, it failed primarily because the steak was dull. If you’re going to serve a steak in a restaurant, it must be a great one.

For dessert we opted for a cheese platter (three Quebec specimens as well as some croutons and quince paste) and an assortment of sweets. Served on a large slate tile, the selection included a central rectangle of mousse cake surrounded by smaller moelleux chocolate cakes and tiny clafoutis. Some of the tastes here were good, but I found all the textures too gummy. One soft cake is fine, but only soft cakes is a bore. A quenelle of ice cream or a few crunchy tuiles would have been better than the accompanying squiggles of sauce.

Now I made the big point atop about personal taste because I walked away from my Communion dinner thinking that some people might like this restaurant. Service was sharp and very friendly. The ambience is good fun, with French background tunes playing just a bit loudly, but they were so good, instead of fuming, I hummed along. As the evening progresses, the room’s numerous tiny neon lights made everything look magical. And the crowd is pretty chic too.

Yet as someone who enjoys a richer meal when I dine out, I found the food here too diet-like, too light, and lacking in flavour. Save for that fish, it felt like food you’d eat for dinner in a four-star ashram or at a foraging symposium. I don’t need to hook on the meat and potatoes feed bag every time I dine out. But I do need to feel satiated, and at Communion, I exited the table craving a juicy hamburger, some fries and a slice of cheesecake.

I think the chef could easily up the pleasure here by enhancing dishes with a little more unctuousness, lusciousness, and delectability. But that is entirely up to them. Until – or even if – that happens, I’ll leave Communion to these whose tastes are more chaste, disciplined and less indulgent than my own. Because for us gluttons, life is too short for a salad laced with labneh.

For more food and wine talk, tune in to Dinner Rush with Lesley Chesterman on Saturdays from 4 to 5 p.m. on News Talk Radio CJAD 800.

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